Sunday, April 30, 2017

I'm eating regular sized meals again,
though I'm being careful about exactly what it is I have( pasta and bready
foods are still too filling for me ) and it seems to be working, as I've
gained 5 pounds in the last three weeks. I don't feel like my stomach is full
after only eating half a meal and I have enough energy every day to get
through what I need to without straining or feeling worn-out.

All good signs.

I'm also walking up to 10K steps a
day, with little to no discomfort, though again I'm watching how I step and
making sure that's I don't sit or stand for too long at any one time at the day
job.

Speaking which, I've been re-tasked again
at work, for the better: as of last week, I'm no longer in contact with the
public and instead can wear headphones all day long while I go about my tasks.
Ironically, this is extremely like the position I started with in the
government nearly 3 years ago, and I fully intend to saturate my brain with
epic music scores to kick my writing Muse into overdrive just as it was back
then when I was putting the finishing touches on my first novel's third draft.

While it does seem at times like I've
gone backwards, I'm choosing to see this as a reward: I've worked hard, put in
my 'time' on the front lines and now I get to step back to perform necessary
tasks that you are in no way as stressful as the ones I was undergoing for far too
long.

In a way, it's like a vacation from
stress, and that's exactly what I need right now.

Apr 25 – Land Mark Redux

Last night I attended a free
seminar, offered by Land Mark.

It was the first of a series, meant
to be an introduction to a total of 10 parts over the course of the next few
months. The series was designed to allow the participants to continue to work
through the topics they wanted to explore from the three-day weekend back in
March that everyone attended.

After the first hour, I already knew
that it wasn't for me.

Quite honestly, there were no
breakthroughs that I experienced from the weekend that I feel I need to explore
further, which I'm getting is a good thing as it means that I'm far more well-rounded
than I thought.

I was also glad to be sitting next to
one particular guy, who was of the same mind: neither of us was convinced
that the seminar series was necessary for us. It was nice to be able to simply
discuss things honestly with someone there.

In the end, I handed in my nametag and
left satisfied that my time would be better spent each week working on my
novels and looking to upgrade my current work position. I also felt that for
many of the people in the seminar, this will likely be a singularly important
experience to vastly improve their lives.

It's just that I'm already well on my
way, on my own.

Apr 26 – Chatting It Upwards

I had a good talk today with someone
I trust in the government.

They were my boss for nine months
last year, and it was a fantastic experience working with them. They are a straight talker, passionate about the work we're doing and for some odd
reason extremely interested in me as a person as well as an employee, which I
found gratifying - and still do.

To make the point: today's meeting
was set up a month ago because this person's schedule is always so incredibly
busy due to their position, but they spent almost 2 hours this afternoon
talking to me about my career with government... as well as chatting about how
I was doing personally.

I felt pretty good after the talk today, I tell you!

Again, it was amazing to hear such kindly interest about my strengths and specific
praise for my skills from someone I respect so much. I really needed that this
week, as I've been feeling very off balance from my shift in responsibilities
at work: today's talk truly helped push all the lingering negatives aside from the last few months.

In summary: I need to focus on
exactly what I want out of my time in government, to move from a broader 'I want a good position
that's not going to stress me out to the point where I can write after the
workday's done' to 'My skills and interests will allow me to specifically
perform well at these particular jobs I want' - I can then apply for those positions( things like
a business analyst )instead of IT positions that I don't-quite-qualify
for.

It was a very good day to be Me.

Apr 27 – The Tricorder is Real!

We all win, with this news.

For the last three years, I've been
following the occasional story about various individuals as well as parties
trying to come up with a viable working modern analogue of the Tricorder from Star Trek. To date, it's been hit and
miss, though I think this guy came the closest of all of the ones that I have
seen.

Oddly, the winning Tricorder design
consists of actually four separate devices, each of them designed to be used by
people with no medical training while still providing accurate and valuable
data for medical professionals to use with connected data links.

In other words, anyone can use them
to diagnose a multitude of illnesses and injuries without the presence of a
doctor:

It's a huge step forward and I hope
that the initial designs can be mass-produced in upgraded forms over the years
to ensure that the quality of medical care around the globe improves
significantly without undue cost.

Apr 28 – A Pro On Writing

The Flow: what is it?

Writers, real writers, often talk
about 'The Flow' in revered tones, as though it's a place that they would love
to visit often but rarely find the time to do so. What they really mean though, is that when a
writer's Muse is working properly, the words flow like water and the passion of
the writer produces amazing work.

David Gerrold, a famous sci-fi
writer, recently mentioned this in one of his many, many FBook posts( again,
real writers often = prolific word count
)below:

It's refreshing to hear a
professional who's been writing for decades speak about the flow in reverent
tones; to me, that means that it's not a state that everyone can attain and
even the professionals seek out fervently on more than a few occasions.

I've felt 'The Flow' when writing my
first two novels and I know in general how to assist my Muse to come out of
hibernation and get to work. I've been doing it on and off for the last two
years and a good portion of the effort is reducing the stress on myself to
where there's room again for my creativity to blossom on a daily basis.

I'm almost there again this year and it
feels... potent!

Apr 29 – Jazz!

This afternoon, my lady and I
attended a jazz session at Hermann's, where we haven't been in over a year.

We were there to see the Great American Songbook Trio, who we
had previously seen last year and loved. My lovely lady's poetry group had invited her
and myself along, and there were a half-dozen of us at the table to enjoy the
music that started a little after 2 PM.

Cookie Lady Louise is on the left!

While I'm not particularly familiar
with all that many of the Jazz Classics, today's tunes that I felt an immediate
reaction to, in no small part thanks to the wonderful renditions that the Trio
gave to the music with their passion and skill.

It was a stellar few hours spent
inside, carried away by jazz.

Afterwards, we were treated by Louise, one of
the Trio, to some homemade ginger cookies as she knew several of our group
members, something that nobody else in the club was offered - sweet! I also
admit that I had a few too many of the cheesy nachos that a nice lady named
Sue bought for the table, but I'm happy to say that while I was uncomfortably
full for the evening, I wasn't in any significant discomfort as I would have
been only a month ago, so that was a useful discovery.

I'm happy that Victoria has such a
deep-rooted and vibrant jazz scene. My girlfriend and I really enjoy having a
place like Hermann's in town, as do many others, and I look forward to jazzing
up my life more in the next few years.

Apr 30 – Races and Blossoms and Trees

What's all that yelling outside?

I was up early today( most days
I'm awake around 6am )and after a small breakfast, I was puzzled to open
the curtains at 8am to the unusual sight of a city bus turning around on my
street, with a police van blocking southbound traffic - what the heck?

Expecting to be picked up by my lady
so we could head out to Langford for the morning, I stepped outside to discover
a massive stream of runners crossing cook Street West to East, with the street
blocked off to all traffic. About 10 seconds later, I spotted my girlfriend's
car on the other side of the southern barrier

Dang.

To her credit, while I searched for a
break in the pack, she managed to get out of the snarled cars waiting
impotently and went looking for a way to reach me. But unbeknownst to her, the
race route was so poorly-designed that it completely blocked off the southern portion
of the city where she lives, to the point where she couldn't find a north-south
route to reach me after a half hour of searching! This was all for the TC10K as it's known, draws over 10,000 runners annually, so it's ironically well-named.

Did I mention it was a massive stream
of runners?

This was the start, and BOY was there a turnout!

Eventually, the numbers dwindled and
I managed to scoot through to where I could be picked up, then we headed west
to the downtown core where one of the volunteers had told me the barriers would
come down first - and it worked!

We did manage to reach Langford in
time to have breakfast and then meet with a gentleman who just happen to be
selling an extremely rare complete copy of the old boardgame Mercanautsfor
$35.00! Considering I have never been able to find it anywhere online, I was
stunned to discover there was one for sale right here on Vancouver Island and
for an incredibly good price - talk about serendipitous!

Little plastic ships, whose sails break off so easily...

While I still have the majority of
the pieces( but not the boards! )from the 3 copies I purchased almost 30 years ago for a mere $8.00
each on clearance, I've never been able to locate another copy anywhere, at
least not until now. It's a unique game in several regards, the major one being
in that it has no set victory conditions: you can play until you get tired of
it, or invent your own rules, which my friends I did back before high school. I truly liked playing the game back then, and look forward to playing with friends here soon.

The rest of the day went pretty
smoothly, seeing us spend some time in James Bay playing Dragonwood at a cute old-school café/bookshop, then just enjoying
the rest of the afternoon together before I went to meet a friend of mine for
coffee at the Breakwater Café where I happily sat in the gorgeous
sunshine without any ill effects( overheating / light sensitivity ): it
felt absolutely wonderful.

It was a lovely, lovely day.

I'm feeling quite relaxed after this
weekend, ready to head into the week where I'll be learning some new tasks that
don't involve any public interaction at the day job and spending my evenings
writing: both sound glorious to me.